Part Eight: The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

 The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

Here continues the series for anyone who is interested about my travels over a year ago. I spent three months in South-east Asia. Though true to the actual handwritten diary in terms of events which I recorded on my trip day-to-day, I have changed the names and where possible gone into more detail for each day with the luxury of having a laptop this time around! For part seven click here. Part eight concerns Hua Hin and the meeting of Marianne.

2nd - 3rd of February 2019 - Bangkok > Hua Hin, Thailand

What on earth has just happened?
    So I should state that during my trip I’d been speaking via Instagram to someone I’d met only once back home called Marianne. To be honest in the drunken haze I was in the only time I’d met her left me barely able to recall her, but she was also in Thailand doing her TEFL. After a few messages, I’d decided to take a detour down to Hua Hin where she was based to see her.
    When I arrived at the coach station in one of the many side streets of Bangkok, several other European travellers were all there waiting, and when I mentioned Hua Hin as my destination, they looked at me quizzically. Why was I heading here? I watched them get on the coach to Chiang Mai with an air of wistfulness having heard a lot about the elephant sanctuaries and impressive temples in the city of the north.
    My mini van arrived and I was crammed into the seat in the far corner, with no space to do anything except wish for a scheduled stop. Noone on this bus seemed to be any kind of traveller and the 4 hour journey trudged along, with me growing gradually more sweaty with the mini van’s aircon non-existent. A family of four bickered all around me and two young children cried and laughed much too loudly. I grew more and more comprehensive as the sun beat down and my ears continued to be pounded.
    After an arduous and painstaking 4 and a half hours (that extra half killed me), I arrived and found my hostel a mere 10 minute walk from the stop. Coming from Bangkok, it was nice to have a bit more space. Everything was unconstricted and at ease, with a slower rhythm that every passer by and worker was abiding by. Unfortunately the hostel was not nice. A woman greeted me from the table outside and checked me into a bunk bed. The single room containing the 8 or so of us was completely open, with the street literally only a pane of glass and 3 feet away, whilst the bed itself was solid as a rock and ants crawled the floors in every direction. The crowning glory in this place though was the shower. My host simply opened a cupboard and pointed into the room under the stairs, which doubled for a cleaning cupboard and had a showerhead on the floor at the centre of the room. I think to fit myself in there I would have had to be truly creative.
    I got out of there as soon as possible and walked around taking Hua Hin in. It was a fairly quiet place, quaint but still had a fair amount of people around. There were not many bars and the beach wasn’t the greatest. Still it was better than home, but by the time I went walking to the mall to meet Marianne I was largely unenthused. I had come to somewhere average on a horrible minivan ride and was staying in probably the worst hostel I’d picked so far on my trip.
    But then Marianne happened.
    She found me at my table in the mall and she was undeniably beautiful. As I say I barely remembered her and like a fresh breeze she sat down and we ordered pad thai. I drank her in a bit more as we talked tentatively about what we were doing in Thailand and where I was heading next, bumping along from point to point trying not to run out of things to say. But a sense of comfort quickly enveloped us and I found it extremely easy to get along with her, though sometimes struggling to pay attention when I was watching her speak as I got carried away enjoying the food and the way she looked and spoke.
    Marianne was in the middle of a TEFL course with lots of other people and back home had also been a teacher in primary school. She’d always wanted to travel, and had decided to use her skills to teach children out here who really needed it. We got a drink and then Marianne suggested heading to the market in town, so we hitched a tuk-tuk and she brilliantly bartered to reduce the fare significantly. I loved the outgoing nature she had, and I bought us cocktails not really paying attention to the scenery and the locals who passed us by, selling anything and everything from trinkets to t-shirts.
    What struck me also was her humour. She cracked joke after joke which didn’t leave me utilising that general polite laugh you might use in these kinds of situations but genuinely had me belly-laughing. My sides hurt, and I felt my wit sharpen as the night continued and the drinks flowed. Even some of the puns she said were actually enough to make me laugh, which made me gradually come to realise that feelings for Marianne were rapidly developing, as I really did despise puns at the best of times.
    Marianne suggested heading to her residence to meet everyone on the course and potentially go out. I immediately agreed, and we walked 10 minutes to the place, each minute an increasing longing in my stomach for her. The place was just a fairly nice block of flats, and I sat there with everyone telling of my travels and getting to know them. There was a couple from South Africa and a couple of Canadian’s along with various other europeans. We enjoyed good conversation, but the group was tight knit and in the middle of an important process so things inevitably kept coming back to their TEFL training. I listened bemused as the bitchiness to teachers cropped up and drinks were poured. And I looked at Marianne, the pretty smile, long flowing hair and engaging eyes. I wanted to carry on how we had started, just the two of us. As though the whole group had been reading my thoughts they bemoaned going out and said they were likely to stay up here and head to bed in a few hours, all giving their own personal excuses. I went for a piss and fistpumped in the cubicle, and coming back out me and Marianne said our goodbyes and headed back out into the exuberant evening.
    She took me to the one hip-and-happening street in Hua Hin, which was full of seedy bars and old white men with young Thai brides. Me and Marianne by now had made joking second nature to us and had taken the piss out of everything and everyone as we moved from bar to bar. I should be pretty drunk by now, I remember thinking, but I suppose the energy and excitement of Marianne was propelling me on. We chatted to a few random people for a while and then before I knew it Hua Hin was closing down. Unlike the 24 hour city of Bangkok, at 4am there was nothing to do except go to bed. But Marianne simply wouldn’t allow it. She kept urging the night on and I kept up with her energy and excitement, drinking in every drop of her, and listening as she began to recite great sections of The Raven and Shakespeare. This girl was amazing. But did she feel the same way I wonder?
    We went to 7/11 and by now all we could do is sit on the step outside it saying every little thing that came into our minds, and drinking beer as the sun began to rise again. The tiredness by now was overwhelming for me, and if not for her I’d have passed out on that very step. I was feeling about her the way I hadn’t felt about a girl in a very long time. I longed to kiss her, but knowing my intuitive nature with women was severely off the mark (Aleta at the Ko Tao pub crawl immediately sprang to mind), I agonised continually.
    Marianne next suggested that we go to a local elephant sanctuary and so again she led the way and we jumped in a tuk-tuk which she also bartered impressively down. The guide informed us that they took elephants who had been abused in Bangkok and tried to rehabilitate them, and I lapped it up at the time. Typing this up now I’m not so sure, and it’s something that’s continued to play on my mind. The area they had was vast, and the guide was from the UK and very convincing, but the elephants posed for pictures, and I’ve since read that that’s how you know the animals are basically slaves. Guilt really does consume me thinking it over, and I will be more careful in the future. Nonetheless I came out of that sanctuary feeling all the more intimate to Marianne, and growing in confidence around her as we traded more stories and jokes in the searing heat.
    I was by now barely awake, but I willed myself on at the wonder and enigma of Marianne. She checked her watch and said that The Local, a bar that sold nice coffee and cocktails, should be opening now and I agreed that we should go. The thought of a comfortable sofa and fruit smoothie almost had me falling asleep as I was walking. We entered the bar and were the only ones there. We took ages with our drinks and chatted continuously, and by now I was starting to sense that this was my chance. By now the barmen had even given up on waiting on us and had headed out for a smoke. I moved closer to her on the sofa, heart pounding, and touched my forehead to hers, looking into her eyes. My intuition was finally right and we kissed for minutes on end as the whole of my insides leaped around and my tongue tasted hers. Pure bliss.
    And now the floodgates had opened. We held hands, invaded personal space at every opportunity and smiled constantly. But still it was not over. Marianne wanted to get a tattoo of a boomerang to signify her time in Australia the year previously, so we went there and by the time we came out darkness had fallen again. We went to a restaurant, played slapsies on the table and Marianne continually prodded me as I kept drifting off mid-conversation. After innumerable kisses at the beach, each one better than the last it really was time for me to call it a day. We said we’d see each other tomorrow and I found my way back to the worst hostel I’d ever frequented.
    Still now as I write this it has been 40 hours since I last slept and yet I still can’t seem to drift off. True, it is the thoughts of Marianne that buzz around my head and somersault my stomach and linger on my lips. But I think it might also be something to do with the rock on which I rest my back and the ants which crawl over my face. I will book one more night, that is inevitable, but it will absolutely not be here.

4th of February 2019 - Hua Hin, Thailand

I can barely wait to check out. I grabbed my things almost the moment I woke up, and headed up the road for 20 minutes to my new accommodation - a private room above a massage parlour. For 8 pound, I sunk into the deep mattress and after an hour more of rest I went downstairs and had a Thai massage that might have been even better than the last one I had on Ko Lanta.
    I took a little ramble around the town not discovering much more than I already had with Marianne, before deciding to take a risk and get my haircut. The woman understood not one word of English, so I communicated using pictures from Instagram of what I wanted. She set to work and I looked down, partly out of fear and partly out of really not wanting to look at my reflection for longer than 5 seconds. After a short time she indicated she was finished and Jesus Christ she’d done perfectly. When I found out the price was the equivalent of around £1.30 I gave her a generous tip, then headed to the beach to read.
    Because of course, all I was doing was killing the time until half 4, when Marianne would finish work and I would see her again. I raced down to meet her and we went to the mall again for more food and ice cream. Still it was exciting and wonderful, but I began to sense the importance of her work and knew it was probably time to move on. It ached to do so, but I announced I would return to Bangkok tomorrow before heading into Cambodia, and we agreed to have one final meetup tomorrow at lunchtime before my mini van left.
    We kissed bumpily on the tuk-tuk home, and I returned to my luxurious room and slept with the buzzing thoughts and somersaulting stomach once again.

5th of February 2019 - Hua Hin > Bangkok, Thailand

I laze around all morning, and get to a lovely bakery to meet Marianne, who again is an emblem of beauty. We tuck into all kinds of food and we say our last goodbyes, with a kiss so heavily charged that I considered cancelling everything and just waiting on her every day until my money ran out. But, I knew I couldn’t. I had seen all there was to see here, and we had promised that we would see each other again - if not in south-east Asia then on the cold and gloomy shores of the south coast town I’d pushed to the boundaries of my mind.
    And like that she was gone, and I boarded my mini van, this time with an agreeable seat and no children on board. After close to 5 hours I was back in that grimy, wonderful and terrible capital of Bangkok, this time in a hostel that offered one of the cheapest journeys into Siem Reap, thanks google. The rest of the day I spent thinking about Marianne, and I messaged her frequently, then got annoyed when she didn't message back often enough. How pathetic I have become. In complete disgust at myself, I left my phone at the hostel in the early evening and took a walk around before eating at the grimiest street food vendor I could find. It was wonderful. Here, at the mercy of a delightful pad thai, I let go. What will be will be, I thought, so get your act together, enjoy yourself, and don’t be a slave to a 5 inch screen when there’s an infinite environment of colour, texture, taste, culture, people and nature waiting to be observed. 

    I still felt completely shattered from those days in Hua Hin, and I retired extremely early after I returned from a productive walk. Cambodia awaits, and I feel ready.

For part nine click here